Pokemon GO – IS IT for You?

Pokemon Go

September 3, 2016; Access the Pdf file, here: ISTE DigCit PLN Pokémon Go – Back to School Advice (Tom McDonald’s comments are on page 30)

Pokemon Go – “Executive Summary:

The amount that’s been written about Pokemon Go in the last 6 weeks has been astounding; as has the range of topics and sectors the game has been discussed within. When reviewing these articles in relation to Digital Citizenship we have decided to look at this from: The Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship, The way ideas get adopted, the cost of Free EdTech, general education discussions, campus community, safety and classroom management, health benefits and the social impact of the game.

Through our amazing PLN Eugenia Tamez provided some ideas around how she is using Pokemon Go to explore the nine elements of Digital Citizenship, Eugenia’s ideas then led to DigCit Kids Ambassador Curran Dee coming up with a Pokemon themed poster.

Given the number of sales calls educators get, the number of exhibitors at education events and all the requests EdTech companies put in to ask for testimonials etc, then comparing with Pokemon Go rolling out overnight. We felt this was something worth exploring!

Digital Citizenship Summit UK Organizer, William Jenkins, offers some explanations for Pokemon Go impressive adoption and demonstrates how this overnight success has been years in the planning. These are ideas that DigCit Leaders could perhaps use with colleagues in their advocacy work encouraging colleagues to become connected educators.

Pokemon Go may not have had such a rapid level of uptake if it wasn’t free. This is a commercial game which is making $1.6 million a day in the US through in-app purchases and may be promoting businesses in the near future. In section two we highlight some stories regarding the games’ commercial interests.

To highlight some of the ideas about “The Technology Cycle” importance of identifying the proponents and early users and giving them the space to discuss new ideas, in section three we look at some of the articles that educators have written about Pokemon Go and why the author of the article is a fan, reasonably ambivalent to, or are detractors of the game in education.

For all that has been written about Pokemon Go in education most schools have been off since the game came out and the one education institution that has had experience of students playing the game is Universities, where the experience has been overwhelmingly positive. In section four we look at universities early experiences of the game.

In section five we move on to looking at some of the safety advice that universities, police departments and educators have produced to help people stay safe when playing Pokemon Go

In section six and seven we look at some of the health benefits of Pokemon Go and the social impact of the game.

For those who are at schools who are already embracing the game we share some ideas that educators have come up with about how Pokemon Go could be used in different subjects”.

Access the Pdf file, here: ISTE DigCit PLN Pokémon Go – Back to School Advice (Tom McDonald’s comments are on page 30)

======================================================================

Tom McDonald, tsm@centurytel.net; 608-788-5144; Skype: tsmw5752